Election: Requests for IDs bring voter complaints

Voters in the Lehigh Valley encounter demands from poll workers to show IDs before voting for president, causing delays and confusion.

November 06, 2012|The Morning Call staff

Voters in the Lehigh Valley and across the state are running head-first into the remnants of a storm and it's not Hurricane Sandy. It's a storm of confusion created by Pennsylvania's Voter ID law, which was put on hold last month after a court challenge.

While voters may be asked to show ID, they are allowed to vote without it. But that message seems to have escaped some poll workers, according to people around the Lehigh Valley who said they were subjected to repeated requests for ID.

In Catasauqua, Sean Redding, 29, said he and his wife encountered a rude worker who kept saying, "I am required by law to ask you for your ID."

Redding objected.

"You could see it in her eyes that she knows darn well she's wrong," said Redding. "They're doing everything in their power to not let you in to vote if you don't show them ID. They're very nasty about it too."

The law, signed in March by Gov. Tom Corbett, required every voter to show a photo ID at the polls. Supporters said it would help prevent voter fraud.

Opponents contend fraud is virtually nonexistent in the state and said the law — which passed in a party-line vote in the Republican-majority Legislature — was meant to disenfranchise the young, poor and elderly, who tend to vote Democratic.

Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson upheld the measure in August, saying it was not overly burdensome. Democrats appealed to the state Supreme Court, which sent the case back to Simpson to determine whether it could be implemented in time for the November election.

In October, Simpson told state officials to hold off enforcing the law in this election, so voters could have more time to obtain photo IDs.

Even so, the Pennsylvania Department of State instructed poll workers to ask for ID as a "test run" to see what would happen if the ID law were in effect, according to Lehigh County Elections Board Chief Clerk Tim Benyo.

Benyo said the request for identification is supposed to occur when voters sign the poll books, not before. However, he also noted that each polling station is headed by a judge of elections, whom the voters elected. As an elected official, the judge has discretion on how to operate their polling place.

"Every polling place is different, and every judge is different," Benyo said. "How they do that job is not necessarily spelled out for them… We suggest how they do it… (But) it's up to them."

In Alburtis, Phil DePietro was surprised when an election official exited the building and asked everyone in line to "get their IDs ready."

The announcement was made again when DePietro entered the church.

When he got to the front of the line and objected to the identification request, he was told poll workers were making sure all voters were prepared for the spring when identification will be needed to vote. DePietro said he was concerned because the message was conveyed in a manner that those standing in line could think they needed identification to participate, which was not the case.

Barbara Arnwine of the Election Protection Coalition told reporters on a national conference call that the organization is fielding many calls of confusion over voter ID across Pennsylvania.

"This is the fault of the Pennsylvania state government," she said. "Signs are posted outside polling places incorrectly saying ID is required… Poll workers have been poorly and wrongfully trained."

By mid-morning, Benyo said he had not heard of anyone being denied the right to vote, though he had received numerous complaints about identification. Some people complained about being asked for identification while other complained because they weren't asked, he said.

Department of State spokesman Ron Ruman said he heard of only about a half-dozen cases of voters across the state being improperly denied their right to vote. He said the department sent instructions to poll workers that they were to ask for identification, but to allow people to vote if they didn't have it.

Jim Brosnan, a Lehigh Township resident who casts his ballots in the township's Pennsville district, said an election official asked him and his wife for identification. He provided it, but she declined. "You have to have ID," he said they were told. "It's the law."

Despite the confusion, the election worker allowed the Brosnans to vote, he said. He said being told to produce identification could be intimidating or embarrassing to senior citizens.